Friday, 21 August 2015

At a mould-able age if a child is sensitised about the significance of feeding the hungry children, they sure will act upon it because a child is another child’s best friend. Children already are gifted with quality of compassion; all we need to do is foster it by giving them the opportunity to foster it. Children are always ready to offer help especially if it concerns another child. These qualities of children inspired The Akshaya Patra Foundation to initiate the Me & You campaign.

The Me & You campaign created awareness among young children of two international schools in Bengaluru. Through this campaign Akshaya Patra representatives encouraged the school children to contribute something towards their government school counterparts i.e. the Akshaya Patra beneficiaries. It communicated that when it comes to feeding the hungry children at government schools, a contribution as small as Rs. 63 can feed an Akshaya Patra beneficiary for one whole month. Volunteers for NGO from IIM Indore and Flame too participated in this campaign in its first phase to spread awareness and encourage students of Primus Public School to contribute towards the cause of feeding the hungry children. In the second phase volunteers for NGO from The International School Bangalore and Chitrakala Parishad campaigned at Prakriya Public School.

The students of both the participating schools willingly came forward to donate for charity by contributing their pocket money. The students of Standard V from Primus school alone collected Rs. 66,000 to donate for charity. The willingness and generosity seen among young children during the campaign explains that a child is always the well-wisher of another child.